Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1887-08-19

at the bottom of it. A few days after be
had solved the problem, he received let
ter, requesting his immediate presence mt
a place near Brooklyn, on a matter of
business" He went, and was not again
seen alive. The following week his body
| was found lying beside Tramp's Rock in
| Yonkers woods, with a pistol near his
hand and bullet in his heart. 1t was
thought that he had wandered odt there
and shot himself, until he was lifted up
| and another bullet hole discovered in the
| back of his head, which evidently had been
the cause of death. Then it was remem-
bered that a wagon driven by two men
and containing heap of something COW
cred with sacking, had been seen driving
along road leading to those woods, and
that soon after it had returned empty.
| Doubtless the man had been murdered in
Harlem and the corpse then transported to
Yonkers and left there with pistol to
| suggest that Howard had killed himself
Dobbs was suspected of having a hand in
this tragedy, but nothing was ever GER
tainly known about it, nor probably never
will be-
AT all events, Howard was gone, though
not uutil he had, as it were, opened the
door for the others to enter and shortly
atterward, Shevelin being on duty, Dobbs
and Hope were admitted to the bank and
made trial of Towards prescription upon
the lock of the vault. 1t worked like
charm the heavy doors swung back and
/
within few inches of boundless wealth.
But these few inches were harder to ira
| verse than as many thousand miles of or
binary obstacles, for they consisted of solid
steel. But Hope and Dobbs had only come
on prospecting expedition !; they made
an estimate of the time it would take to
open the safes after having opened the
vault, and then retired, satisfied that the
| job was feasible. But at this juncture
fatal mishap occurred.
1t had been their intention to return the
tumblers of the lock to their proper posi-
tion by the same wire with which they
had thrown them back and then to con
ceal the hole with putty. But by an un-
lucky slip one of the tumbers was turned
in the wrong direction, so that although
the door was locked fast enough. it would
| be impossible for the cashier to open it the
neXtmorning by the combination. OnIsuch
slight chances do momentous events turn.
| DoDbS and Hope at once perceived that
the misplaced tumbler would draw the at
tention of the bank to what had occurred
and that it would be useless to attempt
anything further for a long time to come
if ever. A superstitous mind might have
fancied that the ghost of the murdered
| Howard had something to do with the cal
amity.
But the bank, as the reader already
knows, did not attach so much importance
to the unexplained hole under the COM
binati0n plate as the burglars had imagin-
ed they Would, and after an interval of
less than year Sheveln once more found
himself the object of fiattering soicita-
tons. AS he was taking a quiet glass at
table IN Third avenue lager beer saloon
one evening he was accosted by Jimmy
Hope, and the old topic was reopened
Jimmy Hope was then at the height of his
reputation and activity. He devoted him
self exclusively to bank burglary, and
now that Howard was dead, he was the
n Ia -,,u
a rather short man, compactly built, and
having the appearance of prosperous
merchant Like most thieves he was
leading double life, having wife and
children in one part of the city, while he
occupied a fashionable apartment flat in
another, and was known there, to an adj
miring circle of friends, AS Mr. Hopely a
retired capitalist.
Hope informed Shevelin that the hour
and the men were at hand to actually ac-
complish the great robbery. The drdnidtiS
| pGrSOnuc IN this instance were to be Hope
himself and his son, "A college-bre youth
of twenty-three, with a fine future before
him: Billy Kelly, Il personal friend of
Shevelip's, brisk and genial young fell
low, who alternated the vocation
way robbery; Pete Emmersun, other
wise Banjo Pete, formerly the star of a
Niger minstrel troupe, but now pro-
noted to the brevet rank Of safe-burglar
Ed Goodie, the distinguished inventor and
practicer of the butcher cart robbery bust
ness, the most mysterious and retcent of
all New York thieves; and, finally, John
Nugent, who was police officer in good
standing, and valuable not only as a di-
rect helper in the job but as an unsus-
pected spy upon the operations of the au.
thorities. Take it altogether, such a oal
axy OF talent had never before been as,
sembled in the metropolis; and, profting
by past experiences, it was impossible
they should fail And if we get the
stuff. Patrick" concluded Mr.. Hope, i'm
pressively, your share of it will be Just a
quarter of million dollars And that's
more than dollar and quarter a day %
/, The bride was certainly a splendid one,
. such as very few persons have enjoyed the
: opportunity of refusing. AS for Shevelin,
J he accepted tin ipation-without
any haggling: Two hundred and fifty
thousand dollars was good enough for
J him, and he did not care how soon he got
his hands upon it. Several other inter.
views were held with Hope to complete
the arrangements.
At length date was fixed upon, Sun
day morning, October ~, Kelly would 90
off duty at six and in the ordinary course
OF things, it would be Shevelin's duty to
relieve him, but Hope decided that sus-
picion would be averted if Shevelin alb.
sented himself on this particular occasion,
J enjoining upon Kelly. beforehand, to
pan
would relieve Sheveln from the chance of
, direct collision ; while as for Werkle, he
should be gagged and handcuffed before
, he could leave his bedroom and the vault
, entered by means of the keys and the
J combination which the janitor was to be
, forced to surrender. This was an even
more expeditions plan than to drill a hole
into the lock; and inasmuch as they
could not count ON more than fifty min
, utes, the consideration was an important
one. The event proved that ten minutes
longer might have meant to the thieves
an addition of hundred per cent to their
booty. If the visit to Werkle could have
. been dispensed with, and the time ex,
| pended with him employed upon the door
! of the other safe, the total gain of the
burglars would have reached the enorm.
3 Gus total of nearly six million dollars.
t But all luck has it limits, and Jimmy
Hopes was destined to stop short of the
three million mark.
! On the appointed morning, every man
was at his post and long BEFORE the un-
suspectlng keelly had tumbed into Ire I
the lanltOr had been Iprrnrizad tba vau II